Dancing with Molly

by Lena Horowitz

  That’s the weird thing about ecstasy. While I’m on it, everything seems like it’s the most perfect version of itself: I’m the perfect, flawless version of me, the music playing is the perfect music, the guy (or guys, plural) I’m kissing are the perfect guys, and everything is going to be okay. Better than okay. It’s going to be perfect.

  I do have a headache this morning, but it hurts way less than the one I had last week. I found this forum online the other day when I was looking around for info about ecstasy and it was all these people talking about their experiences with MDMA. A lot of them were saying that the recovery time from rolling gets shorter and easier. Maybe that’s true.

  Still, I don’t want to be making out with freaking Brandon in a hot tub. And if Pete’s going to stick his fingers in my underwear, he’s sure as hell going to have to buy me dinner somewhere first. Jesus. Like two weeks ago, I’d never have even considered going out with him. And I hope Brandon doesn’t make a big deal about what happened.

  Monday, May 5

  Funny I should be so worried that Brandon would make it weird. He’s been fine. In fact, I haven’t even seen him or Pete since we left English first period this morning. I did, however, just have this epic argument with Jess at lunch. Thank god we’re in study hall now so she has to be quiet. Needless to say, I lost the argument. I swear I don’t even know why I try when we disagree about something. It’s not worth my time. She always wins. I should just stop disagreeing with her.

  In retrospect, I guess it’s not that big of a deal, but I really did not want her and Kelly to come get ready at my place before prom this weekend because I did not want to be there when Reid came to pick up Ashley. I just know that my parents will be on high documentary alert and there will be more pictures of Ashley and Reid snapped by my father and art directed by my mother than any other couple in the history of prom night. And I don’t think I can handle it. It is just SO ANNOYING when my mom is pointing and saying, Squeeze in closer! Smile with your eyes! Let me see Hawaii in those smiles! If seventeen holiday seasons’ worth of family pictures has taught me anything it’s that the pain of photo sessions run by my mother could wrest information from the most hardened criminals in any interrogation.

  This will be one thousand times worse on Saturday because Reid and Carson have rented a limo together and are coming to pick up Ashley after they pick up the girl Carson is bringing. The only thing worse than having to endure pictures with my mother is having to do it as the girl with no date in front of Carson. So I begged, and begged, and begged Jess, but she is insistent. She wants to come over with Kelly and get ready at my place on Saturday because I have my own bathroom. I was like, Are you KIDDING ME? Kelly has her OWN WING. But Jess just stonewalled me.

  So, we’re all getting ready at my house. Kill me now.

  Thursday, May 8

  This week has been hell. I have had a major paper or project due in every single class, and in some of them we’ve had final quizzes before our finals too. It’s like a never-ending odyssey of complete suck. Tomorrow is our last AP Chemistry quiz, then the week is finally over. Except for prom on Saturday. Supposing I survive tomorrow.

  Jess told me today that she and Kelly are coming over tomorrow night to bring their dresses so that they hang in my closet overnight and won’t be wrinkled the day of. I’m going to have to get them to come early so we can get ready and get out the door before Reid and Carson show up in the limo and we all get sucked into Mommy’s Swirling Vortex of Digital Picture Death.

  Friday, May 9

  I am now harboring drugs in my house. I cannot believe this. Jess and Kelly just left and I could throttle them both. I guess I should start at the beginning.

  So, I told Mom that Jess and Kelly were bringing over their dresses to hang them in my closet tonight, and she was all excited. She’s not a huge fan of Jess, but she’s very intrigued by Kelly. I told her a little bit about Kelly and what her dad does, and also how cool their house is, and this was obviously a mistake because all of a sudden my mom was enthralled.

  When she heard Kelly was coming by tonight with Jess, she insisted that they join us for Family Movie Night. When they got here, Mom asked them what we were planning to do after prom, and I shrugged, but Jess had it all figured out. Apparently, one of the guys on the football team named Derrick is having a big party at his house. Mom was like, Oh! I think that’s where Ashley said she was going with Reid. Ashley’s eyes narrowed, and she said, Yeah, I thought it had a pretty tight guest list. Jess dropped it, but she rolled her eyes at me, and I jumped in to pick the movie so we could change the subject.

  I picked Double Indemnity, this old murder mystery, partially because I knew it would drive my mom nuts, but also because I had seen half of it over the summer at my grandma’s house and I had to turn it off before I finished it, but I always wanted to see the rest. It’s one of those old black-and-white movies where all the women wear tailored clothes, and the men all have hats. Sometimes I wish we still dressed that way. I was really pleased with my choice because it was one of the best movies I’d ever seen. Even Mom was won over by the end. Dad loved it and Ashley said it blew her mind.

  Afterward Jess and Kelly and I went up to my room, and Kelly asked if she could use my bathroom. She was in there for a while, and Jess knocked on the door and asked if we could come in. There was a pause, and then Kelly said yes, which I thought was weird, because (a) why did Jess want to go into the bathroom? and (b) if she was okay and going to the bathroom why would Kelly say yes?

  This all became clear when Jess opened the door, and I saw Kelly leaning over the bathroom counter next to the sink doing what looked like a science experiment. She had a bag of powder, a small dish, and three little bottles of colored liquid. I was like, Oh my GOD. What the HELL are you doing? My parents are going to kill me! Of course, I said this very softly. I felt like I was going to throw up. For a minute, I visualized myself grabbing the bag of powder and dumping it into the toilet, but Jess grabbed me by the arm and said, Chill out. I asked if that was cocaine, and the look on my face must’ve been so horrified that Jess just completely cracked up and Kelly started giggling too, but she didn’t look up from what she was doing. I watched as Kelly used a tiny dropper to pull a liquid from a little bottle, then squeeze the droplets into a small dish that held a dab of the powder from the bag.

  As she worked, Kelly said, Don’t be silly. This isn’t cocaine. This is molly.

  I asked Jess what the hell molly was. Jess said it was pure MDMA. Then Kelly explained. She said, You know how when we rolled the first time, you ground your teeth and we jumped around a lot? I nodded, and she explained that was a result of the MDMA being combined with another substance like speed or caffeine pills or other stuff before it was pressed into the pill. She said ecstasy was always a different trip depending on what the MDMA was cut with.

  Kelly held up the baggie full of powder with a smile. She said that this was pure. Then she apologized. She said her brother would kill her if he knew that she had lifted his testing equipment and he was home all weekend writing final papers and studying so she wanted to get it out of the house. Kyle always wanted to either test the drugs she got himself or be present while she did them. He’s very protective. So, Kelly went into his phone and called his contact and bought her own.

  Jess was very pleased with herself. She said, And THIS is how we’re getting into the party at Derrick’s. Your little sister was a total twat about that.

  Of course, this made me totally crack up, because Ashley had been so snobby about the party. Then I asked when they were planning to do this molly stuff. Kelly said, You just call it molly. And I’m doing some tomorrow night at the after party. She and Jess had a conversation about whether they could get away with doing it at prom, but they decided to try it first at the after party because it seemed stupid to risk it on school premises.

  I wholeheartedly agreed.

  I feel weird about it though. On one hand, I’m really excited to try the
pure stuff. If it’s just the feel-good parts and not all the crap that made my jaw clench and caused my stomach to feel a little upset, that’ll be amazing. But then on the other hand, this means I’ll have done some form of MDMA for three weeks in a ROW. I’m going to go on that forum I found and look up the side effects of doing too much. I don’t want to take ice cream scoops out of my brain or anything. Also, doing it at that party of all the popular kids with my sister present seems risky to say the least. I think I’ll probably sit this one out.

  Saturday, May 10

  So, apparently it’s not enough that I’m going to prom as a third wheel tonight. My mother has decided that I have to be tortured this morning as well. I have twenty minutes before the Mother-Daughter Day of Beauty begins. Usually she’s out playing tennis on Saturday mornings, but today I was awakened by the sound of voices downstairs in the kitchen, and the smell of bacon. Dad was up making French toast, and Mom was standing there with a big mug of coffee, grinning ear to ear as she announced to me and Ash that she had a surprise for us. Namely, I’m being dragged out for facials, manis, and pedis at a local spa, then hair and makeup at a salon.

  Ashley did a great deal of squealing. A. Great. Deal.

  I know this probably sounds like I’m a whiny, ungrateful brat, but I just cannot express in words how much I do not want to be the ugly duckling on this little spa makeover day. I just know that Ash will wind up looking like a contestant in the Miss America Pageant and I’ll end up looking like a band nerd with too much eyeliner.

  After we ate, Mom and Ashley went running upstairs to “get ready.” Would someone please explain to me how one might “get ready” to go to a spa and a salon where stylists will be paid to get me ready? I sat and ate more bacon with Dad in silence, and tried to appear pleased about this. I was really hoping to just read this morning. I found this book called Noggin about this guy who wakes up five years after dying of cancer and finds that his head has been attached to somebody else’s body. I have a sneaking suspicion this is how I will feel once a stylist does my hair and makeup.

  Dad was cleaning up the dishes, so I helped him clear the table. His French toast is a work of art. It seemed like the least I could do. As I helped him load the dishwasher, Dad said he was very proud of me. I was like, For what? And he just laughed in that way he does and said, Promise me something? I sighed and said, Okay, fine. He told me that he knew all this girly stuff wasn’t really my thing, but he said he really wanted me to try to let myself enjoy it. He said, Don’t wish it away, then he smiled and said, One day you’ll be an old fart like me and you’ll look back and wonder where all the time went. I said he wasn’t an old fart and that I’d try to have fun and let Mom fuss over me a little. I guess he’s right. At least I don’t have to try to figure out what to do with my hair.

  Later . . .

  I just got home from the salon. I do not recognize myself in the mirror. I can’t stop staring. I was not at all convinced that I would have a good time, and during our first appointment to get facials at the spa, I was certain that it was the most horrible mistake of my entire life. This woman poked and squeezed and scraped more crap out of my pores than I could believe. I literally had tears running down my cheeks. I felt like she was peeling my face completely off. She kept telling me to hold still and I wanted to scream HOW ABOUT I TAKE THE SANDPAPER TO YOUR FACE AND THEN YOU TRY TO HOLD STILL?

  But then I thought about my dad saying to try to enjoy myself, and after a while the crazy bitch with the pokey face stick of death put down all of her torture devices and steamed my face again and then rubbed it with this really great soothing lotion that smelled like cucumbers. She covered my whole face in gauze and ran this wand thingy over it that she claimed was zapping my skin with a low-level electrical current, which probably would have been alarming had she started with that, but it just felt like little pops against my skin and after she’d almost squeezed my nose entirely off my face, I was just relieved that what she was doing wasn’t making me cry.

  At the end, when I joined my sister and my mom in the waiting room, Ashley looked as traumatized by her facial as I had been by mine. I told my mom that what we had just experienced was cruel and unusual punishment and she just laughed and said, Sometimes pretty hurts. Which for some reason totally cracked me up. Ash started laughing, too, and before I knew what was happening, a little woman who might have come up to my chin had me sitting with my feet in a tub of warm water and she was scrubbing my heels with what appeared to be a wood rasp. Ashley was sitting in the giant leather recliner chair next to me. Her feet are notoriously ticklish. She kept squealing and jerking and splashing the poor lady who was trying to give her a pedicure. That woman looked like she’d been sprayed with a hose by the time she was done, but Ashley had flawless “Pink Princess Perfection” on every toe. Mom and I totally giggled the entire time watching Ash jerk around in that chair, begging for mercy, and as I walked over to the manicure table with those foam spacers between my toes, I realized something:

  I was actually having fun. With my mother. And my sister. Doing girly stuff.

  I picked a deep red nail color called “Passion Pit” for both my toes and fingernails. Mom insisted that I get tips so that there was a little bit of length on my nails, and I didn’t argue. Once we were all done at the spa, we headed over to the salon where Mom gets her hair cut.

  Mom had called to make the appointments with her stylist Lynette last week when Ashley announced she was going to prom, and when I said I was going to go too, she’d called back and gotten me an appointment with one of the other stylists at the shop. I had to wait for Robin for about twenty minutes, but Ashley sat down with Lynette right away. She’d brought pictures of big swooping updos and a baggie full of dried roses the same pink as her dress and nails. I began to wonder if I was going to end up looking like a cheerleader from Texas in the 1980s.

  As I watched Lynette lead Ashley back to the sinks for a shampoo, I saw a tall, handsome guy with close-cropped blond hair and biceps as thick as my waist stop at the front desk and glance down at the clipboard, then call my name. I stood up and he said, Hey. I’m Robin, and held out his hand. He had an Australian accent, and I almost fell down. Something about him made my knees a little weak, and it wasn’t just his strong grip, or his gorgeous pecs straining against the snug black T-shirt, or his perfect smile. It was the way he said “Robin.” I must’ve looked sorta surprised because he smiled and said, Yeah, everybody thinks I’m gonna be a chick before they meet me. My boyfriend insists on calling me Rob. Let’s get you shampooed.

  I had a huge smile on my face while Rob/Robin washed my hair. I felt so relieved that I didn’t have some old-lady stylist—like there was possibly hope that I might end up with something cool. It was worth a shot anyway.

  When I got back to Rob’s chair he asked me what we were doing today, and I told him I wasn’t sure. I explained that I was going to prom. He asked me if I had anything in mind. At that moment, I caught a glimpse of Ashley in the mirror. She was sitting in a chair a couple of stations down and on the opposite wall of the salon. Her blond hair was teased and curled, and half of it was pinned in a wild swoop of ringlets. Lynette was pushing the dried roses in at strategic places. The whole thing looked like something straight out of a ball in Victorian England.

  Rob followed my eyes, and turned around to take in the full effect. When he turned back to me I said, That’s my sister. He nodded and I said, I pretty much want the opposite of whatever . . . that . . . is. This totally cracked Rob up and he paused to wipe a tear out of his eye and said, Attagirl. He ran his fingers through my wet, poodle-tight curls, which were dripping on my shoulders, and told me I have “really good hair.” Then it was me who was laughing. Yeah, right, I told him. It’s awful. I can’t do anything with it.

  Robin said I could certainly have cut bangs into it, which he was very happy I had not yet done. Then he bit his lip, narrowed his eyes, and asked if I had a picture of the dress. I did on my phone. Mom had insiste
d that I let her take a picture when I tried it on. She thought she’d use it to convince me that other dresses looked better. I fished my phone out of my purse and showed Robin. He smiled and nodded, then told me I had really good taste. For some reason this made me blush a little. He continued by saying that he thought we should do something simple and sophisticated—like the dress. I just said, Go for it. I trusted him completely.

  I will not lie and say that it was a fun experience. Rob spent about thirty minutes blow-drying my hair with a giant round brush, which felt like it was going to tear all my hair out by the roots. He turned me away from the mirror to do the back of my head, and I briefly wondered if “simple and sophisticated” was code for “bald” in Australia. But then he turned off the blow dryer and grabbed a pair of scissors. He told me he was just going to trim off some split ends and straighten out a couple of layers to “frame my face.” He made a few snips here and there and turned on his straightening iron.

  Rob/Robin spent another fifteen minutes sectioning off a strip of hair, spritzing it, then clamping it between the flat blades of the iron. When he whirled the chair back toward the mirror, I gasped. I couldn’t believe it. My hair was COMPLETELY straight. Not a single curl. I looked like one of those girls on TV. My hair fell in glossy layers that framed my face and flipped under just past my shoulders. Rob smiled and said, See? Told you you have good hair.